


McShep for Beginners

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, M/M, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1373218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a strange little story, my completely derivative homage to the Nebula-winning and totally awesome short story "Magic for Beginners" by <a href="http://www.kellylink.net/">Kelly Link</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	McShep for Beginners

Most Friday nights, SciFi airs a television show set in space. It’s got a great score and high dollar special effects and a cast of very beautiful people.

No, not that show. The other one.

_Stargate Atlantis_.

***

In one episode of _Stargate Atlantis_ , Rodney McKay is sitting on the fourth tier balcony of an outlying spire and looking through a telescope. It’s a small telescope—a two inch diameter barrel on a tripod. Nothing fancy. Nothing like Atlantis’s sensors. Those can detect a wad of spinach between your teeth from a hundred thousand light years away and turn that misfortune into coordinates or a graph or a gently pulsing blue light on a black screen. While these are all useful features, sometimes Rodney wants to actually _see_ the sky, with his own eyes and unfiltered through machines.

John Sheppard is sitting next to Rodney. John and Rodney have been friends since sometime in the first season. They’ve had their ups and downs, a few minor arguments and one very big one. But they’re both adults. No one threw chairs or punches, although John did shoot Rodney once but not because he was angry. No, after the Big One, they simply didn’t talk for awhile. Nothing more than: “How are the power levels?” and “Dr. Taylor is not suited for field work” and “Can you fix it?” until the shock wave had stopped vibrating through John’s bones, until he stopped closing his eyes and seeing the universe white out. But that was a long time ago. John and Rodney are over that now. John and Rodney are friends.

John takes his turn at the telescope. He squinches his eyes up tight and his mouth hangs slightly open as he twists the dial. Rodney looks at the sky. At John. Wonders if it’s okay to kiss your best friend at thirteen o’clock on a balcony in another galaxy.

John doesn’t wonder. He already knows the answer to that question.

***

_Stargate Atlantis_ breaks at regular intervals for commercials for life insurance and _Assassin’s Creed_ , Valtrex and Cialis. SciFi clearly can’t decide if viewership for this program is scrounging cigarette money out of its Pop’s couch cushions or curling up at night with the old oxygen tank. If Rodney was the kind of man who watched commercials—which he is not—he would say, “Herpes? Erectile dysfunction? While not exactly mutually exclusive, certainly different target markets.” And then he would find himself repulsed by, yet strangely attracted to, the sight of Quizno’s new Flatbread Sammies.

***

Back on the balcony, Rodney is still watching John who has trained the telescope on the phosphorescent algae bloom that migrated from the equator in last week’s episode. It saved their lives while also being incredibly pretty. “Look, Rodney,” John says. “Just like stars.”

John swings the telescope around and Rodney leans in, but he doesn’t see stars. Not yet.

That happens next when he presses his lips to John’s and instead of pushing him away or decking him or laughing, John opens his mouth and kisses Rodney back. John tastes like the coffee they’ve been drinking to stay warm and his lips are dry and chapped. His jaw line scrapes against Rodney’s in the most wonderful way and his thumb rests on Rodney’s neck just below his left ear.

Rodney thinks that maybe they’ll talk about kissing when they finally stop, but they don’t. They sit up all night together instead, watching the stars in the sky and the stars in the sea, and kissing each other whenever they feel like it.

***

Fans of _Stargate Atlantis_ write stories about its characters and post them on the Internet. Rodney knows about these kinds of stories. So does John. They both like the silly ones best.

Rodney has never done many of the things the stories say he has. He has never eaten a lemon and died in John’s arms, his body swelling grotesquely and his throat closing in until he strangles on his own breath. He has never been kidnapped by Acastus Kolya and made to crawl oiled and naked on all fours for the Commander’s pleasure. He has never been the father of Teyla’s child.

But some stories—John and Rodney kissing on a balcony in the starlight, for instance—those stories are completely true.


End file.
